I've got to get out of this habit of defining things in terms of things
I haven't defined yet.
Why is it that any time I mention anything remotely connected tot he
lambda calculus everyone starts smirking?
Demonic is Moore's Law... actually it's Murphy's Law. (In a discussion
about angelic operations.)
The sun blows up... that seems to me as something that doesn't happen in
a normal program.
If everyone's happy with that, we'll call it a proof modulo all the
cases we left out.
I'm going to take another piece of chalk.
I've got to stop working out -- I'm breaking all the chalk.
In LaTeX, when you are the second reference, a dagger shows up... so it
looks like you died.
The difference is the program is running quickly in parallel vs. in
parallel quickly.
Writing PP is hard and that's being polite about it... it's actually
much harder than that.
CS490, Independent Reading and Research
Andrew Myers, Brandon Bray, Jed Liu, Grant Wang
Andrew: If we can do a really good push and get all this done by
March while the weather still sucks...
Andrew: You've really got that homeless look going on. (to
Jed, who hasn't been home for one-and-a-half weeks)
CS 611, Advanced Programming Languages
Andrew Myers
I'm going to show you a proof that is not more powerful so we can warm
up our inductive juices.
You assume that I'm the same person teaching every lecture... for all
you know, there is a vast army of clones of me.
We could make lazy stores, but people generally think that's a bad idea.
But we could design a language like that, and people would be perplexed on
how to use it.
Brandon: So did we all fail? Andrew: No, you all passed... some in more style than others.
If you can read the impenetrable C syntax...
The C union type isn't very sound, which good C programmers exploit all
the time.
Constants are nice, but their not the heart of object-oriented
programming.
You guys eat small language definitions for breakfast these days.
Dexter: It's kind of like hitting the restroom at a bar and
coming back for another beer.
Dexter: We can write some useless, hard-to-read code with this
mechanism too.
CS 490, Independent Reading and Research
Andrew Myers, Brandon Bray, Jed Liu, Grant Wang
Jed: Talking to me is about as useful as having your head bashed
in by strangers.
Brandon: When an iterator has no more elements, it says "I have
no more elements."
Andrew: Nothing fails like failure.
Andrew: I wasn't planning on providing this functionality.
Andrew: Now we might have a hope...
Andrew: We're generating a double for loop by the most painful
way possible.
Brandon: Oh, that's a comment...
Grant: Damn it! I'm just dumb.
CS 501, Software Engineering
Williams Arms
The combination of politics and technology is really quite frightening.
Hopefully, you're not here to set out on a life of crime and you're here
to learn your skills.
If you're going to have a library it should be the Bible, Shakespeare,
Dictionary, The Mythical Man Month, and whatever else you want in your life.
Kate: Updating and marinating addresses will take place through a
web application.
By and large, wearing a suit on campus signals an inferior status.
Brandon: The primary job of product management is to design
t-shirts for us.
You can't just go up to the Navy and say we are canceling you.
It's after getting their software projects cancelled that people become
monks.
Those of you who took CS502...
OR 350, Financial and Managerial Accounting
John Callister
If you turn in your homework on ATM slips, it's a lot harder to grade.
We can blame the phone company for your computer not working.
Happiness is a positive cash flow.
If you send money to the government, they're never going to send it
back.
Pamela Bach isn't a famous investor... she's David Hasselhoff's wife.
CS 412/413, Introduction to Compilers and Translators
Andrew Myers
It's time for someone to master the volume control.
Can we build a parse table that can recognize any language that can be
recognized by this sort of parse table.
I've bowed to the gods of Java and introduced a class...
Here's what a compiler looks like in ten lines of code.
The way industrial programming languages are designed is not pretty...
you don't want to see how sausage is made.
After a while, you have to start commenting about the types. Why
not tell the compiler too and let it share in the joke. (On type
inference)
This is industrial strength code...
We're working with a bogus processor here, although it's not Pentium
which is bogus too.
The Pentium is a lot like the MIPS, only incredibly brain damaged.
You've taken 314, you should be able to read a processor a day.
(referring to learning the Pentium architecture)
This is not the worst atrocity in FORTRAN. (referring to
the lack of recursion)
If the things ran into each other then it would blow up, but this was
the old days, so it was okay.
C++ is a Swiss army knife of a language... there's many ways to cut
yourself.
From the Spring 2001 Semester -- a student to Professor Myers:
So, how's your compiler going? (when Andrew was visiting the lab checking
the progress of his students)
CS 486, Applied Logic
Sergei Artemov
Don't worry about the final grade, you'll get what you want... provided
you survive the course.
Without improvisation, it's not a lecture.
The solar system we can figure out whether this is true.
It's unknown to us... maybe the almighty LORD knows.
This course is about astronomy -- we have to think globally.
It's a very good book... only 39.95 plus shipping and handling.
We would be notationally challenged if we consider that case.
Oops... I just love the letter A, so I wrote something that is not a
tautology.
It requires a lot of creativity, we don't like this. (referring to the
Hilbert proof system)
You forced me to put something in writing...
Deriving in the Hilbert system is kind of stupid.
I've run out of ammunition... captured in action. (referring to running
out of chalk during lecture)
There are much more efficient algorithms.
It's a very nice program, it does nothing but converge. (about the
identity function)
It's better to learn nothing than to understand nothing.
HA 385, Business Law
Paul Wagner
I could get a client out of that. (After hearing a car accident outside)
It's like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
Locksmiths aren't well known for their legal acumen.
I got in a lot of crossword puzzles in that one (referring to the Choice
of Law class)
Let's make sure that we have coverage so we can continue to commit
malpractice.
I said "Can I add another charge?" (referring to Levi Jackson after the
car theft)
People aren't supposed to steal your car when there are deer in your
backyard.
"It was completely inappropriate that my doctor prescribed prozac for
bunions on my feet." (in an example)
"Perhaps he particularly liked the pattern of water stains on
sheetrock!"
What does the law say about illegal drugs?... they're illegal.
In Alabama, they're known for gigantic verdicts. Don't go to
juries.
"Let's say the student's are demonic."
Judges think they know everything.. they're just lawyers with robes on.
The bully has to give up the joy of assaulting you. (on illegal
contracts)
At a minimum, in this class, you learn to deal with auto mechanics.
There are lawyers thinking, "Let's say this athlete becomes a
cross-dresser and can't wear a uniform, and thus can't play baseball."
It's better than most CDs these days... go get in a car accident.
(referring to 9% interest in New York).
Sorry if anyone's from Kentucky, I'm just joking... it's really a fine
state.
The jury says, "I saw the face before it was blown off and it was worth
seven-million."
Hey you can get on the phone and say "Yeah, I'll sell you some wood
finish and we can go on a date."
There's plenty of slackers out there... a lot of them are my clients.
That would be bankruptcy fraud... that's when you won't care about your
cost of living because it will be provided for you.
Student: Who do you have a meeting with... yourself? Wagner: Exactly!
He may have had the corporate meeting in the bathroom talking to himself
in the shower.
Wagner: Who's the law protecting here? Student: Ignorant people.
"I miss the days when women would come by and talk to me about
crawfish." (in an example)
HA 418, Innovation and Dynamic Management
Cathy Enz
I need a time keeper that has a knife or a gun.
And, by the way, their government is in denial.
How do you get hard currency? The answer is not by trading with
Russia.
How was that for sixty seconds of history?
I've been spending the last decade trying to screw up my students.
Everyone started saying: look mom, I can succeed and I don't even need
to think.
The good news is that you're fully self-sufficient without me. The
bad news is that you're fully self-sufficient without me.
People are not designated innovators.
That's all very good... it's the stuff for made for TV movies.
(referring to innovation being romanticized)
There's a bunch of weirdos and nuts out there.
Welcome to the world of salt...
None of you look like experts in the diaper business. I'm no longer an
expert.
We're all stupid enough to buy a cup of burnt beans for $3.50.
(referring to the success of Starbucks)
We'll return to this and make it boring on Thursday.
In the good old days (the eighties), the poorest group always stole my
structure.
You can redesign a Barbie to your needs.
You spend your like like I do, and you buy your clothes in the
Pittsburgh airport. (referring to the lack of Nordstroms in Ithaca)
It's very exciting to have Burger King on my side of town.
Coca-cola is simple... water, gas, food coloring... no more cocaine.
What the hell is that? (referring to sound outside the classroom)
"You want to see my tape" (referring to the lack of interest in name
brand tape)
I like to write on my slides, and they don't let me do that with that
screen down.
HA 415, Managerial Leadership
Ken Blanchard
Marc: I want to be the type of person that my dogs think I am.
Marc: What three animals do you most resemble.
One of the things I want to show you is a diaper manufacturing plant in
Waco, Texas.
The biggest addiction in the world today is the human ego.
We didn't know any big words, so students really like our book.
Back in the old days, big people couldn't move.
I want to focus on one of the greatest philosophers of all time... Yoda.
If we can give you a cosmic goose of an experience...
We don't let people bring their brains to work.
We call the supervisor duck the head mallard... at the top of the
organization is a huge freaking duck.
Life's all about getting A's, not some freakin' normal distribution
curve.
One load of bacteria infected dishes could wipe out the entire class.
If you're going to have a manager, you might as well have a nice and
fuzzy one.
You don't punish killer whales.. ahh he didn't do his trick -- don't
feed him today.
CS 482, Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms
Bruno Codenotti, Instructor
Help me with this proof; I am old and I don't know how to do it.
Did you understand this? If you say no, I will be extremely happy.
I don't feel like doing this, but I'll do it anyway, because it's
important for your education.
Don't pretend you don't know this.
A crazy guy came up with this.
Did any of you take algebra?
I don't know what happened yesterday; maybe some brain damage.
Do you all know what a polynomial is?
Why do we use big-O notation? Is it to make your uncle happy?
Do you all know what a matrix is?
This is not totally crazy.
CS 381, Introduction to Theory of Computing
Tibor Janosi, Instructor
I will give you candy...
Please do not bring anything illegal, like alcohol, to the exams.
Oh, I didn't realize I still had the price tag on my shirt.
CS 222, Introduction to Scientific Computing
Professor Steven Vavasis
Cancellation error is like when go to your butcher, asking for two
pounds of salami, and he weighs it in a canoe.
The ocean is just a differential equation.
Newton came up with this, and I'm really happy to say that the greatest
mathematician who ever lived was the founder of my field of study.
When I was learning to cross-country ski, they told me about the fall
line, but I really think of it as the negative gradient.
Hauskholder came up with this algorithm when he was in his fifties,
which gave me quite a relief. Because, you know, Gauss came up with all his
stuff when he was twenty. Hauskholder showed me that I still have time
left. (Professor Vavasis is in his mid-thirties).
Exam question: Hunter Rawlings, the president of Cornell, is taller than
Professor Vavasis. Can you name anyone else taller than Professor
Vavasis? (Full credit will also be given if you can name anyone shorter than
Professor Vavasis.)
Backwards stability is the holy grail of a scientific computer
scientist.
Scientific computation is the oldest, and most interesting part of
computer science. Someday, when we have holodecks like on Star Trek,
everyone will be begging for us, and we'll make millions. But in the
meantime, we'll just continue on crack propagation.
Wilkenson...Wilkenson...Wilkenson...Wilkenson...
I learned this in high school, but since you probably didn't go to the
same high school I went to, you might not have learned this.
I'm Greek, so I guess I have the right to use any Greek letter I want in
this class.
The clock on the wall says we still have a few minutes before class, but
since I just set my watch to the atomic clock in Colorado, I know that it's
time to start now.
A few students asked me to use wide boards, so I'll try using
wide boards and we'll see how that works.
"Matlab is a premier scientific computation language" (turns around and
writes down "Matlab is a premier scientific computation language", a trend
which continued throughout every lecture of the entire semester).
Oh look, the nice police man is here to open the door for us!